June 13, 2010

"I feel the way I raise my children, I don't have to explain to you or anyone else, 'cause nobody knows the way I raise my children. So nobody knows the lessons that I've taught my children to understand, if they are mentally ready for that."

Asked whether he's teaching the teenager the wrong lesson:

"It wasn't even about a lesson; it's what I wanted to do... I could do whatever I want to do and you can't question me about it."

Ah, but suppose you were filthy rich! You could buy ten cars, sure, but would you really be getting value for money while they all moulder in your gigantic garage? If you're rich enough that you can spend $360,000 on cars, you might as well blow it on a car you like (or at least like showing off), rather than 10 cars, most of which you won't even bother driving.

On the other hand, I suppose you could find a cheaper model you like and then just buy a bunch of them in all different colours, to coordinate with your outfit. I'd spend it on one decent but not-too-expensive car and a few years' salary for a driver myself. If, you know, I had to spend it on cars, that is.

You don't have to answer. But don't tell us that we can't ask a question. I didn't really care before. But since you think you can tell us to not even ask, then I not only want to know, but now I might even come up with my own answers if you refuse to provide any.

Why did you buy your son an absurdly expensive car, Sean Combs?

Well, I suspect because you're insecure about your own life and want to make sure you can buy your son's love, thus giving him what you value the most, money, popularity, flash.

Meanwhile, everyone is going to be both a wee bit jealous but also a wee bit derisive about your son, because we all know a 16 year old doesn't deserve a car like that, and your son knows he didn't earn anything like that.

So how are you going to fend off the later resentment of a son who could have everything he wanted and doesn't have any space to prove himself to the world as anything other than "Puffy's spoiled son"?

This is a thug from the gangsta world who made it to semi-respectability by making a B-list actress his mistress and marketing a line of cheap clothing to inner city blacks who think they're making a statement. He thinks that the world is in awe of him and his nouveau riche arrogance and breathlessly awaits his every word.

Paddy O's point about his own insecurity was probably best exemplified a few years ago when he hired a guy to walk around behind him with a parasol to shield him from the sun as he displayed himself for the press at the Cannes Film Festival.

He's probably wealthy enough that buying that Maybach felt pretty much like an upper middle class person buying a new Ford Mustang. Without other evidence, I wouldn't assume this to be indicative of anything more than simply being into cars. I don't get it, but then there are all sorts of interests I don't have like gambling, alcohol, watching sports, mystery novels, motorcycles, licorice, etc.

I just hope the kid physically survives. I am pretty sure the Maybach can do 150+. Not gonna go off the line like my early 80's K-Car (ha!) but it's a large car that can go really really fast. And it can hold a lot of kids.

I guess if the parents of that kids friend are lucky then he won't take anyone with him when he rolls it over the embankment.

Slight change of subject...

A year or two ago the magazine Entrepreneur did a profile piece on him. I was struck by how smart the guy is about important stuff. I was also struck that without his music fame he basically had nothing. He's created an empire off his fame without learning too much about how business really works - a situation that the magazine guys tried to smooth over as much as they could. It was very interesting.

OT but I wonder if his kids will get preferential minority treatment from colleges. I was talking to a kid who was heavily recruited by USC because he had a Hispanic name even though his family is upper middle class and his father is a Duke grad.

Apparently Dad got annoyed with Martin Bashir when Bashir pointed out that he doesn't live with his kids. (Defense: I take care of them.)

The guy probably doesn't know how to dad very well, but I'm pretty confident that having a bunch of kids and taking care of them with gifts is not going to work out particularly well. The cost isn't the question. Maybe the moms have some influence ....

But all of this is really unsurprising, isn't it?

I think Abby Sunderland has an astronomical head start over the Combs' son at making something out of her life.

And I bet the kid did NOT choose the car. (So much for being in touch with your kids ....) Not likely to be handled with care( unless it came with a driver).

Where's Bugatti when you need him. When he built the Bugatti Royale cars, the buyer had to stay at his home and be approved before he would sell you one of them. He turned down a king for one of them. I am sure he would turn down Diddy as well.

It's Comb's fucking money. He can do whatever in the hell he wants with it. Unless you want socialism for rich black dudes and freeee freee total freeedom for doctors.

My Mexican cousin bought his son a 172 for his 17th birthday. As in Cesna 172. Kid learned to fly. Dad was sick of paying rentals. Dad was rich (the hard way--made it in a tough, legit business), and he bought his kid an expensive toy. Kid never crashed it, either.

As I say, it was his money, and it was none of anybody else's goddam business how he spent it.

It's Comb's fucking money. He can do whatever in the hell he wants with it. Unless you want socialism for rich black dudes and freeee freee total freeedom for doctors.

Freedom doesn't mean other people can't look down their noses and tut-tut at what you do with that freedom. There's no contradiction in thinking other people should be free to spend their money however they like, but thinking they have chosen to spend their money in awfully stupid ways. "That person is not behaving sensibly" does not necessarily translate into the belief that "therefore I should be allowed to control that person's life." If it does, sure, that's socialistic, but pointing and laughing does not socialism make.

It's very often (but not always) destructive to children to buy them everything you can afford.

Warren Buffet spoke about it's deleterious effects on the scions of the wealthy, and he mostly avoided it in his own kids.

And it's noticed not because Combs is black, but because of the ostentatiousness of it. Trump and Paris Hilton have become much-maligned symbols of the decadence attached to great wealth. No one gives them a pass, except the readers of People magazine.

Cousin Bob, it is quite clear you do not understand the term 'socialism', which has little or nothing to do with your complaint.

People ought to spend their money on anything that's legal without a bunch of Mrs. Grundys tut-tutting.

Read a little history, guys. Ever heard of sumptuary laws? You know, in the Middle Ages, and well past, feudalism was "socialist" in almost a modern way: Everything "belonged" to the king. Everyone held everything they did because of their service to the next guy up the chain. There was NO private property, and life was tightly run in every little thing, including how much money you could spend on clothes and fancy bling, and whether you could travel or not, and if you could scratch your left ear on Thursday, 'cause you couldn't take a bath but once a week to save firewood and water, etc. Sound familiar?

Private property like we think of it was a radical, 17th century deal. The idea of actual private property that you could do with what you want was what was behind the Whig party in England, and, in the end, behind the gripes that led to the American Revolution. Why do you think all those Scots crofters and fucking peasants everywhere "danced America" in the 17th and 18th centuries except to get away from that feudal shit? Which included a religious part, but I'm not going there, 'cause there're too many Puritans on this site already.

Once you start clucking your tongues at how people spend their money, you are going back to an old mentality behind feudalism. Except we don't have feudalism any more. But we do have socialism, which the government would be glad to help you with.

Also, if I remember my sociology class at Blankety-Bleep State U. right, we don't live in a "shame" culture. "Shame" cultures are usually thought of as being in Asia. Nail sticks up gets hammered down in places like Japan and China.

We live, if I remember Soc.101, in an "inner-directed" society, where each individual learns to carry his own moral compass. At least we used to. People have been worrying for 60 years that we are now in an "other-directed" culture, where what's cool tells us how to live.

That kinda sucks, and may need purse-lipped assholes to put it right. But I doubt it, 'cause purse-lipped assholes are only purse-lipped assholes, and are neither cool, nor Jesus Christ come off the cross, that anybody will listen to.

So, you may not be able to cluck your tongues hard enough to do anything about Mr. Combs and his gangsta friends, but you sure as hell don't want to give the govt. ideas about how much is "enough" for a person to have, 'cause we've been down that road before. And you really don't want to start calling Obama "His Lordship" any time soon.

I've been reading this blog on and off for years, and I've always had this funny feeling. Finally figured it out:

Althouse is a lawyer. Lawyers love arguing abstractions and rules. Some non-lawyers do too. Mostly those tend to be losers with bees in their bonnets, otherwise they'd be lawyers, and get paid to argue oughta and shoulda, instead of doing it for a weird hobby.

I'm fucking tired of oughtas and shouldas. I hate that whole mentality. I forgot the chapter and verse of the Gospel reading for today, but it's the one where the Pharisee clucks his tongue at Jesus for getting his feet washed by a sinful woman. She's doing it with her tears and drying his feet with her hair.

Jesus says to the Pharisee you're a purse-lipped asshole if you can't see this woman is doing this because of love, which has nothing to do with oughtas and shouldas, and because of her love for me, her sins will be forgiven.

Lawyers are usually drawn to the law because they want rules and to win arguments.

I'm the one that gets high, then I want to do it, again [High on drugs]Whenever it's almost light, I want a night with no end [High on drugs]If I can just get a ride, we'll go to your ATM [High on drugs]Because I'm the one that got high, then I want to do it, again [High on drugs]

[Sample:] "Have you forgotten, that once we were brought here, we were robbed of our names, robbed of our language - we lost our religion, our culture, our god - and many of us, by the way we act, we even lost our mind,..."

It's a rich man's burden. Have some sympathy people. Most of us can accomplish the same thing in our circle for a fraction of the cost. Puffy don't know no better. Even if he manges to someday lose most of his money, he'll never get back his mojo back, which now is extremely costly to feed. It's like spinning plates. The poor bastard.

Cousin Bob said..."but you sure as hell don't want to give the govt. ideas about how much is "enough" for a person to have"That's a fine retort to an argument never made.

" we don't live in a "shame" culture."Another refutation of an argument not presented.The US is/was not a shame culture, but shame has been an essential part of our culture and religions for decades.Until recently.

"Jesus says to the Pharisee you're a purse-lipped asshole if you can't see this woman is doing this because of love"I hope P.Diddy isn't being compared to Jesus here.

Hey, Pogo, the "don't give the govt. ideas" bit came from *my* slippery slope argument: Obama's already talking about people having "enough." People bitching about how *some* people spend their money helps promote the mental habit that ends up thinking it's fine for the govt. to take away money from folks who have gotten "too rich." Trouble is--and I've lived it--"too rich" always gets tamped down into my own territory. And don't tell me I'm too rich. I remember Gephardt about 20 years ago telling everybody that people who had MY FUCKING INCOME were "wealthy" folks who could afford to give back, etc. And I could barely meet the payments on my rig. So, if you're saying someone is spending their money on vulgar crap you don't approve of, I say it's none of your business, 'cause there are plenty of people out there who want to take that money away before it gets spent on things they don't approve of.

Tibore mentioned "shame," not you. My point is that shame works differently in different cultures. Sure, shame was a part of the old American Protestant culture, but it was different than in, say, Japan. Shame worked here to set people's inner compasses, at least if you believe David Riesman, and not in the intense social way it did in Asia. Once their inner compasses got screwy, we have what we have, and no number of Puritans are going to reset them. Things change. You may not like it, but they do. I'm all for shame about vulgar displays. Somebody should have told all those Gilded Agers with their mansions at Newport, etc., about that.

And I'm paraphrasing the Bible, but I think that's pretty much what Jesus was getting at. If you want King James, look it up online.

My church teaches us to see Jesus in everybody, even, or especially, in people like P. Diddy or Mr. Combs.

P.S. When I was 16, I didn't get a $360K car or even a $360 K-car. I got a bicycle and dumped by my girlfriend, IIRC.

I have no recollection about what I got at age 16. When I graduated college, my parents bought me a new car. I think it was $5600, or something like that. (When my sister graduated, she was offered either a bike or a sewing machine. This rankles her. Being the oldest has its drawbacks is all I say.) I wonder what Diddy will buy his kid when kid graduates college.

When we quit being judgmental the out of wedlock birthrate went from something like 11% in the African American "community" to the current rate of 70%. A similar spike occurred with Caucasians. Aren't those cool stats? Isn't it great that we can all do our own thing without all that evil tut-tutting?

@CB My church teaches us to see Jesus in everybody, even, or especially, in people like P. Diddy or Mr. Combs.

And all the posters you're swearing at on Althouse are outside the pale, I see.

Nice.

Anyway -- as I mentioned above, it is Combs' money.

The issue, I think (I am not a lawyer and do not pretend to be one), is his use of the word "appropriate."

It is Combs' money, and unlike his half bro, Obama, I don't think we have the right to tell him he's got "enough" money, or even how he has to spend it (as long as we don't have top bauil him out too). But Bashir put him on the spot, and Combs used the word appropriate to describe "whatever I want to give my kids."

I get his meaning, but we certainly have the right to snark about his choice. Call it class envy, bad manners, whatever.

The odds may be stacked against the kid as far as goals and careers go.

His father is a rich man. Possibly he is disadvantaged in terms of developing a strong work ethic, etc. etc., but he can match those with some pretty nontrivial advantages. Doors will be open to him, and at an earlier stage in his life or professional development, that would be closed to the scion of the middle classes. Or the professional upper middle classes.

Balfegor: "Doors will be open to him, and at an earlier stage in his life or professional development, that would be closed to the scion of the middle classes. Or the professional upper middle classes."

Maybe, but what doors will those be? Unless the kid gets an education, the "doors" will be what? A slot at Goldman Sachs? A place at Harvard?

Shaw Puff Caddy P Diddy Holmes would do well to use his money to get his kid into an elite prep school. that would indeed give the kid a leg up. But I somehow believe that won't happen with this "family."

Actually, one reason we can as is that this car is extremely dangerous to *other* cars on the road. A 16 year old kid who is hopelessly spoiled is probably going to drive dangerously. This car's cage makes the driver very safe, but could kill a lot of other people.

You don't have a right to drive any car on the road, and I think 16 year olds shouldn't be allowed to drive, on public roads, cars of this particular nature. People who earned the money for them are older and probably more responsible (not always), but kids who didn't are going to be a time bomb waiting to kill other people.

And if that happens (an accident *will*happen), this guy will have his nose stuck even higher in the air.

If he wants to go into any of the arts, even if not as an artist but as someone in any field that works in the arts, he will have doors open to him. In fact, with those sorts of opportunities available, I don't think going to Harvard and working for Goldman Sachs would be preferable.

Hey, Crack, I don't know where you get that slave crap. Maybe you're anti-Christian, fine, but I'm not pro-slavery. Christianity has been on both sides of the slave issue over the centuries, but Christianity was the main guiding light for the abolitionist movement, like it or not. And more recently, what was Dr. King's profession?

And JAL, I'm only reminding Althouse and her posters that getting all huffy and judgemental was the thing that Jesus was the most uptight about. He was hanging around with harlots and tax collectors (OK, I do have a problem with that last one), and reminding everyone that the harlots and tax collectors were the ones who needed Him, everyone else among the puffed-up, self-righteous set already having their reward. Remember the little story about the mote in the eye? There are plenty of others.

If you're so concerned about society, why don't you worry about your OWN kids, people? You can't do anything about P. Diddy, but you can lead your own lives better. If more people took that on board, we wouldn't have the social problems everyone clucks their tongues so loudly about.

I like what Freeman said, pointing out the kind of career path the kid might take, having that world open to him. And also making the point about drugs being the pitfall. That is the truest thing anyone has said on this board. I see tweakers and other druggies every day, and it kills me. Again there's not much anyone here can do for P. Diddy/Mr. Combs and his kid, but there's a whole hell of a lot people can do about drugs in their own families and lives.

I suppose if you all want to go on moralizing for public consumption, that's your own deal. As I say, it strikes me as kind of the long way 'round.

Cousin Bob, he's really stupid. That's all. A lot of people seem to appreciate it and he's not going away or changing his hatreds for you. Just accept that there really are folks like that out there who need some attention that badly.

That anyone could take my slavery comment seriously - yea, sure, I meant that: Diddy's gonna buy some slaves for his kid - says more about the stupid "sensitivity" surrounding race in this country than every admonishment I've made to drop the sorry subject.

You guys are coockoo for Cocoa puffs.

Wait - cocoa - that's chocolate! And chocolate is dark! And black people are dark like chocolate!

Fuck, I've gone and done it again.

I swear, I'm surrounded by idiots. And, if he was still alive today, I'm sure MLK - no matter what his profession - would think so, too.

And makes me want to question you too. What are you so defensive about? You feel guilty about something? Feeling judged so taking the side of this unsupportable extravagence? You try to buy love like Combs does?

As far as Jesus... "getting all huffy and judgmental was the thing that Jesus was the most uptight about."

Seriously? You're trying to use Jesus to support a guy who spent that much money to buy his son a car? Using the guy who told the rich young ruler "sell everything and give it all to the poor"?

When did Jesus become the guy to support looking away from any sin or extravagance or waste? I can think spending that much money on a car is wrong precisely because I think that Jesus would say such a use of money is wrong, for all kinds of reasons. And he was the kind of person to ask all kinds of uncomfortable questions to tax collectors, the rich, the powerful. Sure he said be open to these people joining in the community, but he also told them that to join in they had to be honest, give away to the poor all they stole, and otherwise "sin no more."

Because, the rest of the Bible suggests that people will certainly be absolutely judged by Jesus at the end of things. So, if I ask questions and suggest maybe there's better ways to use money--even as I try to live such a way myself--then that's perfectly in tune with exactly what Jesus called his followers to do. Using Jesus to support the extravangances of the rich and powerful, to tell people they can't even ask questions of such wasteful use of money, is what got Christianity in trouble during the worse excesses of papal corruption. And still does.

Don't judge the priest.. he's a minister who serves God. The boys he touches don't have a right to criticize or complain... Who are you to judge?

In light of those decades of enforced silence I'll ask questions, especially when people tell me I can't. Precisely because that is the call of Christ in our lives.